Argos the Dog Is the MVP of The Odyssey

2 min readPoor, creaky old Argos, he was just a dog who couldn't die without sniffing his master one last time. A puppy plucked from the jaws of death by Odysseus, he died twenty years later on a dung heap, starving and alone. But in Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, he is not just any dog.It turns out Christopher Nolan is a massive dog guy, having gotten his first pup, Charlie, later in life. "Finally got a dog, and yeah, it changes your life," he told BBC Radio 1 recently. In fact, the Oscar-winning director is so besotted with dogs that The Odyssey was initially given the working title "Charlie's Tale," after his chocolate Labrador. "I decided to do The Odyssey because it's the ultimate dog story," he told Stephen Colbert in May.In The Odyssey, we first meet Argos as a cute puppy, as the swineherd Eumaeus (John Leguizamo) inexplicably throws his brothers and sisters off a cliff. Odysseus, we are meant to infer, sees something in one dog's eyes and chooses him. "He will be my hunting dog," he tells the swineherd.We don't see much of their relationship—just enough to understand it's close. Which is important, because the dog serves a valuable purpose later in the film. As Odysseus finally returns to Ithaca cosplaying as a beggar, he passes Argos dying on the dung heap where Antinous had earlier flung him. The dog recognizes his scent and raises his head feebly. Odysseus stoops to stroke his scraggly, flea-ridden fur. But he cannot show that he knows the dog—he must stay in character to sustain the ruse.Nolan changes the practical importance of the encounter. Odysseus does not merely conceal his feelings, shed a private tear, and walk past the canine. He comforts Argos, who has been taken outside and abandoned to die. The affection he shows the animal is what makes Telemachus realize that the robed stranger is, in fact, his father. Argos therefore recognizes Odysseus before the humans do—but he also helps Telemachus recognize him. The dog becomes the bridge between father and son.His condition reflects everything that has happened to Ithaca in Odysseus's absence: age, neglect, and the decay of the household he left behind. But Argos also represents a form of loyalty that asks for nothing—the kind that few have sustained while Odysseus was away. He has survived long enough to see his master return, and his final moments are spent with Odysseus beside him. Then he dies.It is perhaps the most moving scene in The Odyssey—a film that, as spectacular as it is, contains precious few moments of complex emotion.